Two Free Twitter Network Visualization Tools

Lately, my associates and I have been doing quite a bit of social network visualization research for clients, typically using raw social data and comprehensive, fee-based custom tools. While these are great for deep analysis and strategic planning, sometimes a simple free tool can do the trick if all you are looking for is quick high-level insights. I would like to point out two such tools today, both of which rely on the Twitter API.

Use this tool to quickly visualize a network based on a Twitter hashtag (now available in widget form as shown below using the Canadian Politics hashtag as an example)

3 sample uses:

To see a bird’s eye view of how interconnected (or isolated) a hashtag community/discussion really is. This could be useful to gauge level of influence and reach.

To find related hashtags. This is particularly useful if you’re tuning into an event and want to see if you’re using the most popular hashtag in terms of reach (e.g #olympics)

To quickly set benchmarks for specific and measurable social media engagement objectives. For example, “to increase the correlation of #hashtag1 with #hashtag2 by X% within X months”. This would be useful if one of your broader organizational goals is to build bridges in your community.

Use this tool to quickly visualize a network based on a Twitter username

3 sample uses:

To quickly see who a particular user has recently been engaging with. Very useful for identifying the influencers of your identified influencers.

To quickly see which discussions and hashtag communities they tend to participate in the most. Probably the best way to get a quick contextual idea of how a particular account engages on Twitter.

To see the same information for the 1st and 2nd degree networks of the accounts identified above. This is a great discovery feature, that allow you to find accounts and communities you may not have come across using linear search alone.